


Dwarf Family Structure in TAZ: Balance

by bramblePatch



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Archived From Tumblr, Archived from Bramblepatch Blog, Dwarf Culture & Customs, Dwarf Marriage, Family, Headcanon, Meta Essay, Nonfiction, Other, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-06
Updated: 2018-12-06
Packaged: 2019-09-12 20:40:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16878813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bramblePatch/pseuds/bramblePatch
Summary: Originally posted on my Tumblr November 2017. Look, Griffin gave me poly dwarves and I'm damn well going to run with it.





	Dwarf Family Structure in TAZ: Balance

Between Boyland’s comically large family and how Merle relates to Hekuba and both of her kids, I’m getting a very interesting (and probably entirely unintended, but when have I ever let that stop me?) picture of dwarven marriage and family law in the tazverse.

Namely, the data we’ve been give  _could_  support two interrelated factors:

Firstly, dwarven marriages are not required or even necessarily expected to be monogamous, but neither do the participants have the legal ability to dissolve the marriage; a dwarf is free to seek other relationships up to and including additional marriages, but doing so does not negate their obligations to previous spouses.

And secondly, dwarven culture does not make a meaningful distinction between “parent” and “step-parent” - any spouse of the child’s parent is simply considered an additional parent, regardless of genetic relationship or lack thereof to the child.

A dwarf who is conscientious about balancing their relationships might have multiple spouses, or might be in a complicated web of intermarriage which, from the outside, is easiest to generalize as a single very large family unit. A large enough such family might include dozens or hundreds of children, all of whom any one of the multiple adults would consider “their” children.

Or a dwarf in an unhappy marriage, whose spouse is for whatever reason unwilling to quietly concede to separate living situations, might find it easiest to flee the community entirely - but when reconnecting with the children they left behind, would make no distinction between their own biological child and the child of their spouse’s previous marriage.


End file.
